The hit movie La Bamba (based on the life of Richie Valens), the versatile singer Linda Ronstadt, and the popular rock group Los Lobos all have roots in the dynamic music of the Mexican-American community in East Los Angeles. With the recent "Eastside Renaissance" in the area, barrio music has taken on symbolic power throughout the Southwest, yet its story has remained undocumented and virtually untold. In Barrio Rhythm, Steven Loza brings this hidden history to life, demonstrating the music's essential role in the cultural development of East Los Angeles and its influence on mainstream popular culture. Drawing from oral histories and other primary sources, as well as from appropriate representative songs, Loza provides a historical overview of the music from the nineteenth century to the present and offers in-depth profiles of nine Mexican-American artists, groups, and entrepreneurs in Southern California from the post-World War II era to the present. His interviews with many of today's most influential barrio musicians, including members of Los Lobos, Eddie Cano, Lalo Guerrero, and Willie chronicle the cultural forces active in this complex urban community.

Tracing the history of intercultural struggle and cooperation in the citrus belt of Greater Los Angeles, Matt Garcia explores the social and cultural forces that helped make the city the expansive and diverse metropolis that it is today. As the citrus-

Contains nine essays in which the authors examine various aspects of Texas music from its beginnings to 1950, providing an overview of Texas music history, and discussing Texan jazz, country music, early Texas bluesmen, classical and religious music, and various ethnic genres.

Rock the Nation analyzes Latino/a identity through rock 'n' roll music and its deep Latin/o history. By linking rock music to Latinos and to music from Latin America, the author argues that Latin/o music, people, and culture have been central to the development of rock music as a major popular music form, in spite of North American racial logic that marginalizes Latino/as as outsiders, foreigners, and always exotic. According to the author, the Latin/o Rock Diaspora illuminates complex identity issues and interesting paradoxes with regard to identity politics, such as nationalism. Latino/as use rock music for assimilation to mainstream North American culture, while in Latin America, rock music in Spanish is used to resist English and the hegemony of U.S. culture. Meanwhile, singing in English and adopting U.S. popular culture allows youth to resist the hegemonic nationalisms of their own countries. Thus, throughout the Americas, Latino/as utilize rock music for assimilation to mainstream national culture(s), for resistance to the hegemony of dominant culture(s), and for mediating the negotiation of Latino/a identities.

In 1980, the celebrated new wave band Blondie headed to Los Angeles to record a new album and along with it, the cover song “The Tide Is High,” originally written by Jamaican legend John Holt. Featuring percussion by Peruvian drummer and veteran LA session musician “Alex” Acuña, and with horns and violins that were pure LA mariachi by way of Mexico, “The Tide Is High” demonstrates just one of the ways in which Los Angeles and the music of Latin America have been intertwined since the birth of the city in the eighteenth century. The Tide Was Always High gathers together essays, interviews, and analysis from leading academics, artists, journalists, and iconic Latin American musicians to explore the vibrant connections between Los Angeles and Latin America. Published in conjunction with the Getty's Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, the book shows how Latin American musicians and music have helped shape the city’s culture—from Hollywood film sets to recording studios, from vaudeville theaters to Sunset Strip nightclubs, and from Carmen Miranda to Pérez Prado and Juan García Esquivel.

From “Who Put the Bomp (in the Bomp, Bomp, Bomp)?” to a list of all song titles containing the word “werewolf,” Rock Music in American Popular Culture II: More Rock ’n’Roll Resources continues where 1995’s Volume I left off. Using references and illustrations drawn from contemporary lyrics and supported by historical and sociological research on popular cultural subjects, this collection of insightful essays and reviews assesses the involvement of musical imagery in personal issues, in social and political matters, and in key socialization activities. From marriage and sex to public schools and youth culture, readers discover how popular culture can be used to explore American values. As Authors B. Lee Cooper and Wayne S. Haney prove that integrated popular culture is the product of commercial interaction with public interest and values rather than a random phenomena, they entertainingly and knowledgeably cover such topics as: answer songs--interchanges involving social events and lyrical commentaries as explored in response recordings horror films--translations and transformations of literary images and motion picture figures into popular song characters and tales public schools--images of formal educational practices and informal learning processes in popular song lyrics sex--suggestive tales and censorship challenges within the popular music realm war--examinations of persistent military and home front themes featured in wartime recordings Rock Music in American Popular Culture II: More Rock ‘n’Roll Resources is nontechnical, written in a clear and concise fashion, and explores each topic thoroughly, with ample discographic and bibliographic resources provided for additional research. Arranged alphabetically for quick and easy reference to specific topics, the book is equally enjoyable to read straight through. Rock music fans, teachers, popular culture professors, music instructors, public librarians, sound recording archivists, sociologists, social critics, and journalists can all learn something, as the book shows them the cross-pollination of music and social life in the United States.

This collection explores Chicano, Mexican, and Cuban musical forms and styles and their transformation in the United States. Employing musical, historical, and sociocultural analyses, Loza addresses issues such as marginality, identity, intercultural conflict and aesthetics, reinterpretation, postnationalism, and mestizaje--the mixing of race and culture--in the production and reception of Chicano/Latino music. Barrio Harmonics opens with a comprehensive overview that begins with music in the US Southwest in the seventeenth century and ends with the Grammy Awards for Latin American music in the first decade of the twenty-first century. In the following chapters, Loza discusses artists whose music ranges from sones, rancheros, and corridos to Latin jazz, R & B, and rock and roll. Among those he considers in depth are Pancho Sánchez, Lalo Guerrero, Tito Puente, and Los Lobos. He also surveys the contributions of scores of other individuals and groups who have shaped the current contour of Chicano/Latino music. Other topics include the music industry and the impact of globalization, the African diaspora, and Latin American music in Japan. In addition, Loza offers a candid assessment of intellectual capitalism and the void of nonwestern voices in contemporary scholarship.